


Operation Get-Out-the-Vote

by aeli_kindara



Series: Supernatural Codas [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Election Day 2018, Episode: s14e04 Mint Condition, Gen, Humor, Impala Conversations, Men of Letters Bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 09:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: In which Sam and Dean get out the vote, and also, because I couldn't help myself, there's a couple feelings.





	Operation Get-Out-the-Vote

**Author's Note:**

> Natalie made me do it.
> 
> Um, maybe some warnings for like, mild voter fraud (these are the Winchesters after all) and rampant liberalism.
> 
> Also, US politics in the year 2018. There should definitely be a warning for that.
> 
> Generally G but some language might have snuck in.

It’s a sixteen-hour drive from Salem back to the bunker, and between food stops and a pause for some mutual shuteye at a truck stop near the Indiana border, November first is nearly over by the time the Iights of Mankato shake Sam out of his half-slumber in the Impala’s passenger seat.

Dean brakes down to 30 to pass through the town. The speed limit’s 35, but it’s front porches all along the highway, and sometimes people’s cats run out with no warning. Sam rubs his eyes against the glare of the Cenex’s all-night floodlights. Campaign signs bristle from the faded strips of roadside grass.

“Gettin’ close,” says Dean, keeping his eyes on the road. He drums a finger idly on the Impala’s steering wheel, even though the tape player’s off. Sam pushes himself upright, and hears his vertebrae make several alarming noises.

They’re getting too old for sleeping in cars. Maybe Sam can ask Cas for a tune-up, if he’s back from his hunting trip with Jack. Still, having two shifts of drivers beats hauling across the country by himself.

“Hey,” says Dean. They’re past town, but the signs still bloom like ghosts out of the night in the Impala’s headlights. Re-Elect Marshall, Kobach for Governor, Vote Kelly. “You voted yet?”

Sam rubs his eyes. “What?”

“You know.” Dean’s playing his right hand against the wheel now, drumming out some gentle rhythm between his last finger and his thumb. “Mid-term elections? Save the world crap? Thought you’d be all about that.”

Maybe he’s still sleeping. Sam pinches his thigh; it hurts. “Dean,” he says, “we’re hunters. We don’t legally exist. We don’t _vote._ ”

Dean turns to stare at him. The Impala drifts slightly in its lane, and Sam’s hands twitch involuntarily toward the wheel. “What are you talking about? I voted. I always vote.”

For a moment, Sam’s so startled he forgets to care about the Impala’s steady progress toward the center line. It touches the rumble strip, and Dean corrects its course. “Since when?” Sam demands.

“Since forever. You don’t remember that civics teacher, in Michigan?”

Sam doesn’t remember that civics teacher in Michigan.

“Guess you were in a different school there. Anyway, he was always like —” Dean holds out a stern, planar hand — “ _son, when the time comes, you walk into that polling place and you cast that ballot, even if you don’t vote for anyone. Show ‘em that you young people will show up, and then they can’t ignore you._ ”

The voice is a gruff one; layered on Dean’s baseline gravel, it sounds cartoonishly deep. He gestures, dropping the persona, and adds, “Course I didn’t vote for no one — I mean, Jesus Christ, who does that. Voted for Clinton.”

It takes Sam an instant to do the math. “No, you didn’t.”

“Hey,” says Dean, pointing at him. He’s got a bag of potato chips between his legs. He shovels a handful into his mouth, then says, around it, “Don’t tell me who I didn’t vote for.”

Sam sits up straighter. “You were born in 1979. You weren’t of voting age until 1997. You couldn’t have cast a ballot in ‘96.”

“‘92,” Dean counters, spewing crumbs.

“Gross,” Sam tells him, wrinkling his nose, and then, “what?”

“‘92,” Dean repeats, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Dean,” says Sam, “you were _thirteen._ ”

His brother is grinning widely, and Sam’s kind of glad it’s too dark to see the half-chewed food in his mouth. “Not according to my driver’s license. Sweet-talked the lady at the desk a little, and bam, good to go.”

Sam takes in a breath for a retort, and comes up with nothing. He lets it back out, helpless, and shakes his head.

\---

By the time they’re pulling into the bunker’s garage, Sam’s found his second wind. “Okay,” he says, as he shoulders his bag, “so you voted as a thirteen-year-old in Michigan. Which is more than a little suspect, I’ll grant you, but at least you weren’t on the FBI’s most wanted list at the time. Are you telling me you’ve voted in every election since?”

Dean shrugs as he closes his door. “Mighta missed some midterms.”

“Seriously?” Sam can’t help feeling a little like Dean’s suddenly insisting that the sky is green. Yeah, he registered in California when he started at Stanford, and voted there in ‘02 and ‘04, but — he never thought of Dean or Dad as political. He remembers _telling_ his friends his family wasn’t political.

After that, it was back to the hunting life. He and Dean were on the road in ‘06, after Dad’s death. In ‘08, he was a little caught up in the hunt for Lilith, and the whole apocalypse thing. In 2010, he didn’t have a _soul._

He’d actually thought about registering in 2012 — the year he lived with Amelia. He’d thought about it a lot. Made the fake ID he planned to use; made it perfect.

Only — his face was just a year off the evening news. If he’d brought something down on her —

Besides, it was Texas. It was going red no matter what Sam did; like Kansas, like South Dakota, like pretty much everywhere his family’s ever lived. And then Dean was back, and he had more important things on his mind.

“Why not?” Dean frowns over the Impala’s hood at him. “You saying you actually don’t?”

Sam snaps back into focus. “We’re legally dead, Dean! Not to mention we’re both felons.”

“But not _convicted_ felons, Samuel.” Dean tosses him a grin that fades when Sam fails to catch it. “What, seriously? You telling me we’re worse than that dick in the White House? ‘Cause I know you know we’re not.”

Sam opens his mouth to point out that it’s not a presidential election year, but Dean rolls right over him. “ _Or_ the dick in our district, I mean you realize this is one of the most heavily Republican congressional districts in the entire freaking country, right? You don’t want to _do_ anything about it?”

“Of course I,” Sam starts, “I just —” but Dean’s on a roll now.

“That whole thing about Medicaid? This asshole thinks homeless people don’t get healthcare because they don’t _want_ healthcare, I mean, Jesus Christ. And he’s a freaking doctor! Male gynecologist,” he adds, more thoughtfully, “which, honestly should kinda give you creep vibes even _without_ adding the whole -slash-politician thing.”

Sam spreads his hands helplessly. Dean’s not wrong, it’s just —

“I mean, we scam our way through everything _else_ in life. Is this some weirdo law school sanctity-of-the-political-process thing? What about all those people in there?” Dean jerks his thumb toward the bunker. “You gonna tell me _they_ shouldn’t vote? You got some hangup about them being from an alternate universe?”

“No,” says Sam, an obscure shame curling in his gut. “I — got them all registered. A few weeks ago. A bunch of them have addresses in Nebraska, they’re pretty excited to vote against Fischer.” They should be, too; he’s excited for them. It’s just — it’s different.

Dean gestures impatiently. “So what’s the problem, pre-law? Did you puke on a girl last time you tried to vote?”

_Hey,_ Sam wants to say, _low blow,_ but his throat gums up, and he doesn’t.

“You’ve wanted to be normal your entire life, Sam.” Dean actually looks kind of upset about this, eyebrows drawn together. “How does that not extend to voting?”

Sam swallows, twice, before he can speak. “Listen. It’s not a big deal. I mean —” He flattens his palm against the Impala’s metal. “How about this? If it matters this much to you, let’s — do everything we can to get out the vote. Help our people get to the polls. Maybe we can find somewhere to volunteer or something. I’ll look into it the morning. You’re right; it’s important.”

Dean’s still looking at him with an uncertain expression. “All right,” he says, slowly, but he doesn’t argue further, just turns to lead the way inside.

\---

In the morning, Sam’s sitting down at the kitchen table with his cup of coffee and Jody’s number on the dial screen of his phone when Dean comes in, rubbing his eyes. “Hey,” he says, blearily, “coffee?”

“Over there,” Sam points him. He had to move the coffee pot; they usually need two or three going at a time, nowadays, and there wasn’t room on the old shelf.

Dean blinks, then moves toward it. “Right. Who you calling?”

“Jody,” says Sam, honestly, and then, in a mild case of invention, “Operation Get-Out-the-Vote.”

Dean slides into his customary seat with a _all-right-then-get-on-with-it_ gesture. Sam breathes out through his nose, and hits the button for speaker.

He’s been hoping to check in on how everyone’s doing — how Claire’s taking the news of Dark Kaia, how Jody’s holding up. He hasn’t had the chance all the last week. Jody’s off on Fridays, though, and she usually has a window of time after Patience and Alex leave for school and the hospital, respectively, and before Claire wakes up.

He didn’t really want Dean here for this conversation. Because — well, just because. When Jody picks up, he says, “Hey, Jody, got Dean here with me.”

“Hey, Sam. Dean,” says Jody, and then another voice — Patience — choruses, “Hi, guys.”

Sam glances across the table at his brother. There’s a lot of background noise on the call, like they’re in a moving vehicle. “Shouldn’t you be at school? Is everything all right?”

“Yep, Patience is taking a few days off. We’re on our way to North Dakota, meeting up with Donna and Claire.” Jody’s tone is crisp, businesslike.

Dean frowns. “North Dakota? Jody — we’re calling to make sure you girls all get your votes in. If you’re gonna be out of town —”

Jody laughs. “Relax, Dean. We’ll be back by Tuesday.”

“I already sent my absentee ballot for Georgia,” Patience chimes in.

“Election’s actually why we’re going,” Jody adds. “This new voter ID law they’ve got — requires everyone to have identification with their residential address. Only, some people don’t _have_ an address for their residence, and when they call their 911 coordinator to get one — usually the local sheriff’s office — no one’s there to answer the phones.” Sam can practically hear her smile, spiky and dangerous. “Donna and I know a bunch of these boys from those stupid sheriff retreats. So — we’re going to knock some heads together. Make sure someone’s got the phones this weekend — even if we have to do it ourselves.”

Warmth curls in Sam’s chest; he laughs. “You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

“Need any help, Jody?” asks Dean.

“Nah, we got this.” Jody’s tone is fond. “How you doing?”

By the slow smile that spreads across Dean’s face, Sam already knows what’s coming; he shakes his head, leaning back. “I fought _Hatchet Man,”_ says Dean, “and won. Frickin’ David Yaeger.”

“You did not _win,”_ Sam cuts in, unable to help himself. “You managed to not get strangled until I burned the keychain. And it wasn’t Hatchet Man, it was a ghost-possessed Hatchet Man action figure.”

“Same difference,” says Dean.

“I have no idea what you two are yammering on about,” says Jody, “but I’m gonna go with this is an ‘I killed Hitler’ type thing and say, good job.”

“They’re horror movies,” say Patience and Dean, together, and then, as Dean blinks down at the phone, Patience adds, “Ronson’s a fan. _What_ about Hitler?”

“Jody,” says Sam, loudly, before Dean can start in on Nazi necromancers, “we also wanted to check in. On the arm, and — how you and Claire and everyone are doing, after, y’know.”

A long sigh crackles over the phone. Sam glances up at Dean, then down again, and waits.

“Honestly? A hell of a lot better than I thought. We went back to look for Kaia, but she was long gone. After that, Claire took off for North Dakota to help canvass for Heitkamp — I’m as surprised as you are, but she said she needed to be out doing something, to get her head on straight. It was — honestly pretty mature of her.”

“Family get-out-the-vote trip,” Dean says, sitting back, “that’s awesome.”

Sam still feels a little like gravity has reversed directions and everyone else is just acting like it’s normal. Maybe it’s the magnetic poles. He should dig out a compass and check.

“Yep. And Alex is staying back in Sioux Falls to make sure all the hospital patients get a chance to get their ballots in,” Jody adds. “We should hang a shingle; it’s practically the family business this week.”

“Hey.” Dean’s grinning across the table at Sam. “There’s an idea.”

Trepidation sends cold fingers down Sam’s spine. “What’s an idea?”

“We,” says Dean, spreading his hands as if to frame an invisible picture, “should get out the vote at Oak Park.”

\---

“You boys are so sweet,” says Mildred. She’s got an arm hooked through one of Dean’s, his other hand occupied by a cup of tea; he’s tucked into the corner of the couch where he can’t reach the table to set it down. “But don’t worry. I’m chair of Oak Park’s chapter of the League of Women Voters, actually. Several of us are going to volunteer at the polls on Tuesday. We’ve got things quite well sorted around here.”

“Ah,” says Dean. He looks both a little pleased and a little out of his depth; Sam, watching, has to smother a laugh. Dean gestures with his mug. “Well, we should —”

Mildred doesn’t release his arm. Dean makes an abortive attempt to rise, and the couch seems to swallow him further instead. He smiles, weakly, and takes a sip of his tea.

“Of course,” Mildred continues, serene, “I do know some people who could use some help getting to the polls. Annie’s granddaughter had to take her car to the shop on Friday, isn’t that right? She’s not sure she can make it before work.”

She says this last quite loudly. A stooped old woman making her way across the Oak Park atrium hesitates, turns, and then shuffles her walker slowly around. “Yes, that’s right,” she says, creakily, and then, waving a wrinkled hand at Sam, “budge over, then, make room, you great galoot.”

They’re both trapped. “I have a friend, over in Jewell County,” Annie says slowly, “who still refuses to move off that damned old farm of his — do you think you boys could give him a ride, too?”

\---

By the time they leave Oak Park, they’ve got a list of names and addresses and phone numbers two pages long. Sam’s phone keeps buzzing against his thigh all the way back to the bunker, and when he checks it, he’s got half a dozen more names in texts from Annie. Who knew octogenarians were so adept with their iPhones.

In the war room, he pulls out his laptop and starts making a map of their would-be voters. Dean, across from him, gets on the phone. “Hi, yes ma’am,” he’s saying, “my name is Dean Winchester, a friend of your grandmother’s. She tells me you might have some difficulty getting to your polling place on Tuesday, and asked if we could offer you a ride.”

There’s a silence. Sam enters another address, way out on a rural route; Google Maps gets it wrong, and he has to turn on satellite and pull up the county parcel GIS to cross-reference. It’s nearly an hour’s drive away.

“Well, how about Monday? Advance voting at the county election office is open until noon. Yeah, that’s Smith Center,” Dean says. Then, after another pause, “7:30am Monday it is. Yes we _can_ make a stop to drop off your kids at school.”

He drops the phone from his ear, and jerks his chin at Sam. “Elsa Prescott. You catch that?”

“Yep,” says Sam, creating a new field and typing busily. Dean peers at the sheet, and dials the next number.

\---

Around the tenth call, the time slots start getting tight. Sam stretches in his chair, blinking against the glare of his screen. The bunker’s pretty empty, but Jules is lingering by the stairs down into the kitchen, absorbed by a Men of Letters report.

“Hey, Jules,” Sam says. “What are you doing on Tuesday?”

She looks up at him slowly. “Uh, voting?” she asks, as if suspicious it’s a trick question.

Sam smiles. “Right. Any interest in helping a few other people vote, too?”

\---

Cas and Jack get back on Sunday night. On Monday morning, they join the brigade. Mom and Bobby are off in Wisconsin somewhere, but they’ve got their ear to the ground on a bunch of hunters that want some help getting vote-savvy out that way. They’ve been working overtime tracking down unlikely voters and printing new IDs under their names.

“Is that how you do it?” Sam asks Dean, on the way to their fourth pickup of the day. “Find some guy who isn’t using his vote, and pretend to be him?”

“Sometimes. Or make someone up and get them registered.” Dean grins. “One time? I was in a hurry — went in as FBI, said I needed to investigate possible vote-tampering, and cast my own ballot while I was at it.”

Sam shakes his head. “Dean —”

Dean drops the grin. “ _What,_ Sam?”

“It’s just —” Sam sighs. “You don’t ever see all the crap in the news, conservatives getting hysterical about voter fraud, and think — we’re part of the problem?”

“It’s not like I’m casting ten extra ballots, Sammy.” Dean’s fingers clench on the steering wheel. “We _save_ this world. We should get a say in who runs it.”

This conversation is getting them nowhere. Sam looks down at his hands. Dean’s phone rings, and he digs it out of his pocket impatiently, hits speaker and tosses it on the dashboard with a clatter. “Yeah.”

“Dean?” Cas’s voice. “Jack and I have run into a — ah — bit of a holdup. Gerald McGillicuddy seemed to think we were also taking him grocery shopping, and, well, now we’re at the store and he’s in a rather lengthy conversation with one of the sales associates about — incontinence products, and I’m not sure —”

Sam’s already got the map up on his laptop screen, tilting it to avoid the glare from the windows. “We can put Riley on your next pickup, Cas,” he says. “Try and get loose when you can.”

“Thank you, Sam,” says Cas, and Dean turns them down the gravel driveway and toward their next would-be voter.

\---

Monday evening brings a lull. Sam spends it getting the Men of Letters’ old screen set up in the war room, to show the election returns when they air; he sets up the projector angled through the railing of the mezzanine. He walks back in, an hour later, to find that Dean’s broadcasting _All Saints Day IV_ and pointing out to a captive audience of Cas and several bemused-looking young hunters the finer details of Hatchet Man’s fighting style.

Sam shakes his head, and retreats to his room to take a call from Jody. She and the girls are on their way back home. She sounds tired, but pleased; Claire, she says, is sleeping in the backseat.

Sam asks Patience, a little teasing, whether she’s had any visions of the outcome of the election. “Far too many,” she answers, stone-cold serious. “I’m just not sure which of them are real.”

The next day is even busier. Dean drives, Sam hunches over his map in the Impala’s passenger seat — he should publish the API for this, Jesus — and fields calls from what’s grown to a five-state effort, fingers dancing on the keys. They pick up Anthony Garcia, and Heather Reyburn, and Christine Stinson, who has three kids in tow; the oldest slides into the front seat between Sam and Dean and asks bright questions all the way to Mankato and back.

By the time they’re on their way to the last pickup of the day, way out in the middle of nowhere on gravel roads, the sun has disappeared behind the horizon. Quiet streaks of cloud are still lined with gold to the west, but Dean’s got the headlights on, and a few late-season moths are starting to dance in their beams. Almost everyone else is on their last pickup, too, or done for the night; they’ll be congregating back at the bunker soon.

A sense of quiet peace is stealing over the frenetic pace of the morning. In the driver’s seat, Dean looks happy. Calm.

“Hey,” says Sam, into the quiet, surprising even himself. “I never knew you cared so much about this stuff.”

Dean glances over at him, sidelong. His mouth quirks slightly, then relaxes. “Yeah, well. You know.”

“I mean,” says Sam, after a beat, when it becomes clear Dean isn’t going to elaborate. “I _don’t._ If you want to talk about it.”

His brother sighs, and runs one finger over the side of the steering wheel. “It’s not that crazy, Sam. I mean, we spend most of our lives fighting evil that no one knows about but us. That _we_ have to protect the world from, because all these people? Out here? They’re not ready to handle it. And hell, sometimes we’re not ready to handle it either, but we’ve _got_ to. The other option’s not an option. And I’m okay with that. That’s the deal. But the other side of the deal is —”

But Sam gets it. “There’s evil that people _can_ prevent,” he interrupts. “Without, without violence or risk or fear. Just by being citizens and showing up. They have that power, and it’s their — duty to use it.”

“Yeah,” says Dean, and for a while, neither of them says anything.

It’s getting truly dark outside. They pass over a small concrete bridge, the kind without guard rails, and swallows swirl around the Impala’s wheels.

“Honestly, man,” says Dean, into the quiet, “I’ve — only been bingeing movies some of the time. This last week or so. I’ve also been — catching up on what I missed, while I’ve been under. And I don’t even know what to fucking say about it. I mean the Kavanaugh thing, shootings, bomb threats, people losing their minds over kids seeking legal asylum — the new climate report — Trump trying to define trans people out of existence —”

He stops talking, abruptly, hand twisting on the wheel. _Yeah,_ Sam thinks, but can’t quite say it around the sudden pain in his throat.

Dean shakes his head. “I dunno, man. Sometimes it all seems even scarier than the shit we fight. Because he has all these millions of people, of their own free will, voting to say he can do this shit. And I just don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know what to do with people, human people, _choosing_ that kind of bad.”

He isn’t wrong. Sam looks down at his laptop screen; everyone’s where they should be. He presses it closed with soft click.

“I, uh.” He clears his throat. “You remember what I told you about that book with Galahad? And about, uh, feeling like I wasn’t clean?”

Dean darts him a sharp look. “You were high on trials-juice.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, voice grating loud against his ears. He forces himself to keep talking; sucks air into his lungs and looks out the window, away from Dean. “But I wasn’t lying. I mean, I always felt that way. Like I _had_ to be normal, maybe, to prove I could, to prove I was good enough, and then when I wasn’t —”

He isn’t saying this properly. He sighs, and runs a hand over the Impala’s door handle, looking down.

“What,” says Dean, “are you saying you’re not, like — worthy of being a voter? ‘Cause, Sam, you know — that’s the biggest load of bull I've ever heard.”

Sam sighs. “I know. I know. And I _did_ vote, for a while, it’s not like I never have. It just always — feels like a lie. Like it’s — bad luck, I guess, to put something as corrupted as me on those scales.”

“Sam,” says Dean, “it’s just a piece of paper.”

“And I always figured,” Sam continues over him, “that I could do more good by helping other people — I mean, with voting, with hunting, whatever — that it was simpler. ‘Cause if I start thinking of myself like just another person, a citizen —”

“You’ll also start thinking about how much you’ve given to this damn place,” Dean finishes for him. “How much you’re owed.”

Sam nods tightly. He feels like a kid again, suddenly, driving around in the passenger seat of his big brother’s car. “I guess I just — if I start thinking about myself as someone who should get a vote — I mean, _myself_ — I don’t know where that stops. I don’t know — what I _wouldn’t_ start wanting.”

Dean casts him a sideways glance. “Apple pie life?”

“No.” Sam laughs, lightly, tipping his head back. “No, that ship sailed. I’m a hunter. Just — to just be a person sometimes, too, I guess."

It sounds like nothing, when he says it. It feels like the most terrifying thing he's ever confessed.

Dean’s quiet for a long time. “I think we get to be people, Sammy,” he says, finally, turning at long last into a rutted driveway, and by then, it’s too late to answer.

\---

Their last passenger of the day — Agnes Ellicott — has watery blue eyes that magnify disconcertingly behind the huge frames of her glasses. Her hair is white and wispy and somehow still looks less likely to blow away than she does, hobbling down her front stoop with wizened hands clutching the railing.

There’s an enormous old willow towering over her small house, old barns in various states of dilapidation all around. Sam gets out of the car to help her past the ruts and into the passenger seat, and she doesn’t say a word.

She doesn’t say a word for the next twenty miles. Then she declares, as they turn onto asphalt, in a voice so sudden and loud that it makes Sam jump several inches and knock his head against the ceiling of the backseat, “I got an abortion. Back in ‘53.”

Sam glances at Dean. Dean glances back at Sam. Neither of them know what to say.

Several more miles pass in silence. Then, as Dean’s at last turning into the parking lot of the Lebanon Community Center, Agnes adds, in the same stentorian tones, “ _Fuck_ Roger Marshall.”

“Probably best not to say that in line,” Sam tells her, opening her door and leaning down to offer his forearm to grip. She’s surprisingly strong. “They can make you leave for making political statements. All right there?”

Agnes doesn’t answer. She finds her feet, and then hobbles forward, brushing away Sam’s attempt to help her. He hesitates, watching her go.

The line is spilling out the doors into the parking lot. As Sam watches, a young woman with a tight bun peers out from inside, then pushes the glass door open. She calls out, “Polls are closing in five minutes, but if you are in line, you _will_ get a chance to vote. Thanks, everyone, for bearing with us.”

Behind her, just inside, Sam can see Jack. He smiles blindingly as he offers a teenage girl an “I Voted Today” sticker. Cas mentioned that he'd jumped ship, earlier today, to volunteer at the community center; that Mildred had taken him under her wing.

“Hey,” says Dean, in an undertone.

He’s come around the hood of the car. He has something in his hand, and as Sam turns, he pivots his palm, slightly, so Sam can see.

It’s a driver’s license. _Ellsworth Hayes,_ it says. It’s got Sam’s photo on the left.

“Made it for you last night. It’ll get you through. If you want it,” Dean says.

Sam hesitates.

The door of the community center bangs open again; it’s had that busted hinge for a while. “Four minutes until seven,” the girl calls, “but again, if you’re in line, you will have the chance to cast your ballot.”

Still, Sam doesn’t move.

“Go on, man.” Dean’s looking at the pavement. “You found me that Hatchet Man case. Let me do this for you. Or do it for me, if that’s not good enough to fly.”

Sam’s hand closes around the ID. He thinks of Kaia, and Jody and Patience and Claire. He thinks of Cesar and Jesse Cuevas. He thinks of Agnes Ellicott; he thinks of Mom. He thinks of a kid reading Supreme Court cases under the covers in a shitty motel room, dreaming of Stanford, dreaming of impossible things.

The poll worker starts her announcement again. Two minutes.

“Yeah, okay,” says Sam, and goes to stand in line.

**Author's Note:**

> Go vote, y'all.
> 
> ETA: I went and did the [tumblr thing](https://gravelghosts.tumblr.com/post/180244169459/spn-fic-operation-get-out-the-vote-gen-48k), if you want to reblog.


End file.
